Dubai, United Arab Emirates, June 07, 2020:    Dubai Customs is reaping what it has sown and invested for years in advanced technologies following the directives of Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director General of Dubai Customs and as part of the government vision to turn into a smart government. This was manifested in a number of smart services, applications and programs that serve clients and facilitate legitimate trade and global supply chain

Latest figures released by Customs Development Division, which is in charge of developing innovative systems and platforms, showed that 96% of customs transactions were approved and endorsed automatically thanks to smart workspace system which reduced clearance time to 4 minutes only. 

Data also showed consistent and smooth remote working. Employees have used TEAMS Microsoft 615,000 times, completed 3.1 minutes of calling, and sent 440,000 messages. They have made 109,000 calls and shared screen for 719,000 minutes between 15th March and 5th May. 

“The successful working from home strategies that we followed in response to the covid-19 pandemic have encourage us to consider and follow the same path in the post-covid era,” said Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director General of Dubai Customs. “Work went undisrupted during this period, and better performance was recorded, which necessitates more investment into advanced technologies. This is one of the lessons that we learnt from the crisis. We will rely more on the 4th industrial technologies and artificial intelligence for the longer run. 

Dubai Customs has made available all necessary tools for its employees during the remote working period. These included the virtual desktop which enables user to host all office applications and work from anywhere, Mizlay which enables employees safely access their emails and other Dubai Customs applications, and TEAMS Microsoft for online meetings and communication. 

Commenting on this, Younis Othman, Director of Information Technology Department said: 

“We have a resilient and very advanced IT infrastructure which helped us work from home without any disruption. The crisis has prompted us not only protect our systems from any disruption, but also to make enhancements to ensure best services are delivered to our clients based on 4th Industrial Revolution and AI technologies. Online meetings and communication through Teams MS has been perfect. There were 18,000 meetings. Information shared through Teams made 15% compared to 85% for the email in March, but rose in April to 34%.”